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Originally Posted by relentlessflame
No, this isn't why the three-year theory exists. Anime fandom (and especially anime merchandise purchasing) is a revolving door. Every year, some new people enter the fandom and others exist having gotten bored of it (or having found other priorities in life). There will always be a remnant who will stick around for the long-term, but these are the exceptions and not the rule. The actual membership pattern of this forum can attest to this phenomenon. I've heard multiple interviews with people in the Industry who've explained that anime merchandising in Japan is done with this model in mind -- they hit them hard and fast before they lose interest, since most customers won't keep buying DVDs for long.
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Bold emphasis mine.
Then a three-year gap between Season 1 Haruhi and...
some new episodes, is terrible... wouldn't you agree?
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Even the Evangelion stuff -- they keep on remaking it and adding more spin-offs because of the revolving door of fandom. While some people stick around forever and buy everything, many people enter at a random point, buy a few things, and then leave/stop buying. I remember them saying that the average "life expectancy" of a "hardcore" anime fan is something like 12-18 months. Most people just disappear.
So, the remnant aside, that's what the three-year memory refers to: the regular turnaround of fandom. Of course they're also banking on a remnant that didn't forget and are using that remnant to bring some of the buzz back about their show, which they expect will get people to check out the first season to see what they missed.
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Bold emphasis mine
Then how is pi$$ing off your remnant - your hardcore fans - a lot of your novel readers who want Disappearance (in Haruhi's case) - with something like Endless Eight a
good idea? The part of the fanbase you're counting on to create positive buzz for the show, and you are
deliberately pi$$ing them off?
There are exceptions to the rule of "all publicity is good publicity".
One obvious exception, for example, is how a lot of bad word of mouth from initial movie goers during a huge opening week for a movie can cause following weeks to
plummet in sales for that movie. People like seeing train wrecks, but in the modern internet age, genuinely good worthwhile content by its own merits = DVD sales, and train wrecks = a lot of free internet downloads out of people curious to see the train wreck but little actual sales.
Here's an analogy for you...
The popularity of the Haruhi Suzumiya anime is like a speeding locomotive gathering steam.
KyoAni is Superman flying down to stop the locomotive.
Endless Eight is the resulting train wreck - and like a train wreck, it brings everything to a halt.
People may flock to see the train wreck for free, but they're not going to pay to ride on it...